After brainstorming about a new design concept I began researching different problems we have in our everyday lives. Going off of the video Rhoener Textiles he first discusses “growing”. This sparked several ideas for apparel. One thought: Children grow very fast, and another is obesity. Often people are losing and gaining weight or getting taller and all of their old clothing goes to waste. Waste=Food, discusses biological metabolism and technical metabolism. Technical metabolism stood out to me. It is basically a concept of turning a material into something bigger and better. Upcycling.
My concept would solve this problem. Making pants for children with several buttons so that the waist and length could be lengthened and taken in. The same concept for the obesity issue; more buttons or closures that are able to lengthen and enlarge or shrink waistline or length. Therefore, they would be using the same garment for longer, rather than buying new clothes when they grow out of them. I think that people would like this idea, however, I think that garment manufactures and designers would take this idea and run with it. I think they could implement many more innovative ideas to this concept. We would be using more product but in the end would be creating less waste. Thus the cradle to cradle alternative.
Hi, Maggie;
ReplyDeleteI think this concept definitely has the potential to extend the life of garments, a particular need for children's wear. I'm not sure I understand the C2C aspect of this concept -- what happens at the end of the garment's life? Where is the second life created?
I like the idea, but I'm not too sure if grown adults would like this, there would not be the same style and fit to every different closure used but that is where the designer could use their creative side.
ReplyDeleteWaste=food, the clothing should be made of material that can become compost for the earth and dyes that are not harmful, as done so in the video of Rhoner Textiles. The buttons and closures should also be able to become compost or there needs to be a facility that tears these pieces off to reuse them on the next garment.
Great idea though, especially for children!
This is a great idea, and I think they actually do make some child's clothing like this already. But I think a good idea to upcycle these garments after they are used would be to cover furniture with it. You could use the fabrics to cover the furniture and also use the buttons or clips or zippers to make it decorative. This is just an idea for the second life of the fabric to create something new. This issue is a huge problem in our world today, I agree. They need to come up with a solution for it. In the Cradle to Cradle article, this would be classified as a more technical metabolism because the garments will be going back into the industry to generate a new product from old materials. Great idea.
ReplyDeleteMaggie,
ReplyDeleteAfter working in retail I know that parents definitely appreciate buying clothes that are made to last, and even more interested in clothing that can grow with their children. I think that this is an idea that children manufacturers should definitely implement. I think that it would be easy to implement this with technical metabolism by upcycling their jeans into future pairs of jeans. Plus, children's styles don't really change that much between ages or years so it should make it even easier to upcycle.